Heartless(116)

Then she heard the chirrup of three jingling joker’s bells. She opened her eyes in surprise, but the girls and the bells were gone. The glen fell silent. Not a breath, not a breeze.

The wall that had held the girls’ drawings was gone too, opened wide to reveal the entrance to a hedge maze, with walls that towered three times Cath’s height.

Hatta let out a weary sigh. “Thank you, loves,” he said, sounding truly grateful, as though he doubted each time if they would let him through or torment him forever. He approached the entrance to the maze without half as much bounce in his step as before. As he passed by Catherine, she heard him muttering beneath his breath, “Though if I go mad, we’ll all know who’s to blame for it.”

Cath wanted to smile, but her nerves were still frazzled. She followed behind Hatta and, thinking it would not do to be impolite, she whispered to the empty glen, “Thank you very much.”

Only once she had stepped past the first wall did a ghostly whisper, three girlish, ghoulish voices, brush across her earlobe.

“You are welcome,” they said, “Your Majesty.”





CHAPTER 44

THE MAZE WALLS WERE MADE of entwined dead branches and tight-packed laurel leaves and the occasional bare spot of ancient stone wall. Catherine felt a sense of helplessness the moment they’d stepped through the entrance and peered down the first endless stretch. The maze continued in each direction as far as she could see, fading in a swirl of fog in the distance. The path itself was padded in a white-flowering ground cover that was soft and damp with dew.

“Well,” said Jest, clearing his throat—the first sound to break the miserable silence that had engulfed them in the Sisters’ absence. “That was not exactly like the first time you brought us to meet the Sisters.”

“No? I’ve passed through so many times they all start to feel the same.” Hatta smirked and started undoing the buttons of his coat. “What was their price before?”

“Raven gave them a recitation of a classic Chessian poem,” said Jest, “and I gave them a lemon seed.”

Cath startled, thinking of the lemon tree that had grown over her bed.

Mistaking her surprise, Jest gave her a nonchalant grin. “I’d had some lemon in my tea that day—the seed was stuck in my tooth. I’d been working at it all afternoon, but the moment they asked, it popped right out. I was glad to be rid of it.”

Cath was still mulling over the lemon seed and the dream, wondering whether it could be a coincidence, when she felt the heavy wool being draped over her shoulders. She looked down, her free hand grabbing the lapel. The coat was impeccable, not a speck of lint on it.

She turned to face Hatta. “What is this for?”

“It is a long, damp walk, Lady Pinkerton. I do not wish for you to catch a cold.” Hatta turned away and started walking down the maze’s first wildflower-dotted path.

“Thank you,” Cath said, somewhat uncertainly, as she and Jest hurried after him. She slipped her arms into the sleeves. The lining was silken and warm and smelled of herbal tea.

“Yes, that’s kind of you, Hatta,” added Jest, who had no coat to offer her himself.

Hatta waved a hand at them without looking back. “I wish she’d taken a hat before we left the shop. How I find myself in the company of such an unadorned cranium, gallivanting about mazes and wells, is ever the mystery.”

The corners of her lips twitched.

Jest offered his elbow and she took it gladly, the warmth of Hatta’s coat and Jest’s company driving back the chill the Sisters had given her.

They had not gone far when shadows began to close in around them, reminding her that it was still nighttime, despite the golden light of the meadow. Jest removed his hat—its new silence disconcerting—and found an oil lantern inside, already lit. It shed a welcome circle of light onto the maze walls and flickered in Raven’s black eyes.

“Did they draw such horrible pictures when you came across the first time?” Cath asked as they traipsed after Hatta.

“They drew, yes, but I didn’t think much of the drawings at the time.” Jest pondered for a moment, one finger trailing over Cath’s knuckles. “Do you remember what they were, Raven?”

Perched on his far shoulder, Raven ducked his head to peer at Catherine around Jest’s profile. “A merry-go-round was cast in ink, a monster sketched on stone, and a messenger who would go mad for mistakes he must atone.”

“That’s right,” Jest mused, his voice turning low. He was no longer smiling as he stared ahead, watching Hatta pull farther away from them. “Hatta was the messenger. I remember that now.”

Cath’s feet stalled beneath her. “And they drew a monster, like the Jabberwock? And a merry-go-round? Like the hat the Lion was wearing when…”

Jest fixed his gaze on her, filling with the same thoughts, the same horrors.

If they were prophecies, those two at least had come true.

The Sisters’ words spun through her head. Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad …

“Do not go through a door!” Hatta yelled back at them. He hadn’t slowed his pace and was fast disappearing into the maze’s shadows. “They gave us their warning, now we have only to heed it.”

Cath shuddered and traded a concerned look with Jest, but it was too late to turn back now, and nothing had changed, besides. They were still going to Chess, and every step brought them closer to it.